From a broken alumni database to a thriving alumni community in two weeks.
Independent schools using Raiser's Edge NXT have decades of alumni data that's incomplete, stale, and invisible to the community it's meant to serve. Studiously enriches that data and launches a live alumni directory — completely — in fourteen days.
What every independent school alumni database actually looks like
Schools maintain alumni records in Raiser's Edge NXT, but the data accumulated over decades is riddled with gaps — making it nearly impossible to engage, connect, or leverage the community. It's the core problem no alumni engagement platform has solved — until now.
Missing career information
Current employer, title, and work history are blank for the majority of alumni — often 60–80% of records.
Stale and bounced emails
Email addresses go stale as alumni change jobs or providers. Large portions of lists bounce before they're ever read.
No LinkedIn connections
LinkedIn URLs are virtually never present in school databases, making it impossible to verify or enrich records.
No searchable directory
Without a live directory, students and alumni have no way to find and connect with each other — even when the data exists.
Missing college data
For many alumni, what college they attended after your school is completely absent — a huge gap for engagement and fundraising.
No location intelligence
Current city and geographic data are outdated or entirely missing, making regional outreach and event planning a guessing game.
How Studiously builds your alumni directory in two weeks
A complete, end-to-end process — from your first Raiser's Edge NXT sync to a live alumni community with thousands of enriched, verified profiles.
We sync directly with Raiser's Edge NXT
No CSV exports, no manual uploads. We connect directly to your Raiser's Edge NXT instance and pull your alumni data — names, class years, contact fields, giving history context, everything you have — into the Studiously pipeline.
We fill the gaps — completely
For every alumni in your database, we research and verify their current career information: where they work today, their full work history, current title, LinkedIn URL, undergraduate college (and graduate schools), current city, and a brief professional bio. Data that's been missing for decades, filled in days.
A searchable alumni directory goes live
Using the enriched data, we build a beautiful, searchable alumni directory — accessible only to your school's constituents. Students and alumni can search by name, industry, class year, college, location, or in plain natural language. Every profile shows only non-sensitive information: employer, title, college, location, LinkedIn, and a brief bio. Email addresses are never visible.
Students connect with alumni — privately and instantly
When a student finds an alum they want to reach, they send a message through the platform. That message lands directly in the alum's email inbox. The alum never has to create an account, never has to log in — they just hit reply. Contact information stays completely private, on both sides. Our custom email sender tech routes everything through the platform without exposing a single email address.
Your advancement team sees everything
The advancement and alumni relations team gets a full visualization of their community — how many alumni are in each industry, region, college type, and class year. Plus quantitative and qualitative analytics on the connections being made: who's reaching out, who's responding, and what industries students are most eager to explore.
Everything syncs back into Raiser's Edge NXT
All the enriched career data — employers, titles, LinkedIn URLs, colleges, locations — syncs directly back into your Raiser's Edge NXT records. Your CRM gets better over time, automatically. The work we do doesn't just power the directory; it permanently improves the database your entire advancement team relies on.
What your school gets: a live alumni directory in 14 days
A completely transformed alumni engagement infrastructure — built on your existing Raiser's Edge NXT data, live in your community's hands within two weeks.
A live alumni directory
Thousands of verified alumni profiles, searchable and accessible to your students and alumni from day one.
Rich career data
Employer, title, work history, LinkedIn, colleges, location, and bio — filled in for alumni who've been blank for years.
Private, frictionless connections
Students reach alumni through the platform. Alumni reply from their inbox. No accounts, no friction, no exposed emails.
Full community analytics
Visualize your alumni community by industry, region, college, and class year — and track every connection being made.
Enriched Raiser's Edge records
Every enriched field syncs back into your NXT database. Your CRM leaves the engagement better than it found it.
All within 14 days
From first sync to a fully live directory with thousands of alumni — the entire transformation in two weeks.
Studiously vs. Almabase, Graduway & AlumniFire
Most alumni platforms were built for large university fundraising programs. Studiously was built from the ground up for independent schools — with native Raiser's Edge NXT integration, active data enrichment, and a 14-day path to a live directory.
| Feature | Studiously | Almabase | Graduway | AlumniFire |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Raiser's Edge NXT native sync | Two-way, automatic | ◐ Integration available; setup required | ◐ Third-party integrations | — Manual data import |
| Active alumni data enrichment | Fills blank records Employer, title, LinkedIn, college, location — all verified | — Displays existing data only | — Alumni self-populate profiles | — Alumni self-populate profiles |
| Time to live alumni directory | 14 days | ◐ Weeks to months | ◐ Weeks to months | ◐ Weeks, alumni must register |
| Alumni account required to respond | No — just reply to email | — Account required | — Account required | — Account required |
| Contact info stays private | Always — both sides | ◐ Varies by configuration | ◐ Varies by configuration | ◐ Varies by configuration |
| Enriched data syncs back to CRM | Automatic, continuous | — Data stays in platform | — Data stays in platform | — No CRM sync |
| Built for independent schools | Primary focus | ◐ Higher ed / university focus | ◐ Higher ed / university focus | ◐ General alumni community |
Alumni directory privacy: legally sound by design
Studiously is built around a clear legal and ethical distinction that exists in every state — the difference between non-sensitive and sensitive information — so your alumni directory is fully compliant from day one.
No law prohibits building an alumni directory with non-sensitive information
There is no statute — federal or state — that requires explicit alumni consent to publish a directory containing only non-sensitive, publicly available career information. The directory is digitally private, accessible only to your school's constituents, and every alumnus has a one-click opt-out. The model is both defensible and standard practice for educational institutions.
Your CRM gets better with every interaction
Every piece of data Studiously enriches — employer, title, LinkedIn, college, location — syncs back into your Raiser's Edge NXT records automatically. Your advancement team starts every campaign with better data than they had before.
Frequently asked questions about alumni directories
Everything schools ask before getting started — including how Studiously compares to Almabase, Graduway, and AlumniFire.
Studiously is purpose-built for independent schools using Raiser's Edge NXT, with a native two-way CRM sync and active alumni data enrichment that fills blank career records your team never had. Almabase is a broader alumni engagement and fundraising platform with a higher education orientation — it displays what's already in your database but doesn't enrich missing data. Studiously can have a fully live, enriched alumni directory running in 14 days; Almabase implementations typically take significantly longer and require alumni to self-populate.
Graduway is a mentorship and community platform focused primarily on universities and large alumni associations. It relies on alumni creating accounts and building their own profiles. Studiously enriches your existing Raiser's Edge NXT data automatically — alumni don't need to do anything to appear in the directory. Alumni also never need to log in or create an account to respond to student outreach; they just reply to an email. That frictionless model drives far higher alumni response rates than platforms requiring registration.
AlumniFire builds community through alumni self-registration, which means your directory is only as complete as the alumni who choose to join. Most schools find that self-signup rates are low, leaving the majority of alumni invisible. Studiously starts with every alumnus already in your Raiser's Edge NXT database, enriches their career information, and launches a complete directory on day one — no alumni action required. All enriched data also syncs back to your CRM, which AlumniFire doesn't do.
Alumni data enrichment fills in the career information missing from your existing database. For most independent schools, 60–80% of alumni records in Raiser's Edge NXT have blank fields for employer, title, LinkedIn URL, college attended, and location. Studiously takes each alumnus and researches their current career profile — verifying employer, title, work history, LinkedIn URL, undergraduate and graduate schools, current city, and a professional bio — and adds it to their record. The result: a fully enriched alumni database and a directory ready to launch.
Yes — there is no federal or state law requiring explicit alumni consent for a directory of non-sensitive information. Non-sensitive information — like where someone works, their job title, the college they attended, and their general location — is publicly available and cannot reasonably be expected to be private. Studiously displays only this type of information, keeps all contact details entirely private, restricts directory access to your school's constituents only, and gives every alumnus a one-click opt-out. The model is both legally defensible and standard practice for educational institutions.
From first Raiser's Edge NXT sync to a live alumni directory: 14 days. Days 1–2 are the CRM sync and data audit. Days 3–8 are alumni data enrichment. Days 9–11 are directory build and launch. By comparison, most alumni engagement platforms — including Almabase and Graduway — require months of implementation work and rely on alumni self-registering before the directory has meaningful content.
No — alumni never need to create an account, download an app, or log in to anything. When a student sends a connection request through Studiously, the message lands directly in the alumnus's personal email inbox. The alumnus just hits reply. Studiously's custom email routing keeps both parties' contact information completely private while enabling a direct, real conversation. No platform friction means dramatically higher response rates.
Yes — all enriched career data syncs automatically back into your Raiser's Edge NXT records. Employer, title, LinkedIn URL, college, and location are all written back. Your CRM becomes a continuously improving database rather than a static snapshot — giving your advancement team better data for every campaign, giving ask, and alumni outreach. This is a key difference from platforms like Almabase, Graduway, and AlumniFire, where enriched or updated data stays siloed in the platform.
Ready to see your
alumni community come alive?
Schedule a 30-minute demo. We'll show you exactly what your directory would look like.
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